Identidad Madidi
CULTURAL RELEVANCE

Madidi National Park and Natural Area for Integrated Management (PNANMI Madidi) is also home to 31 indigenous and campesino communities of Tacana, Leco and Quechua origin, with a human population of 3,174 people. Four indigenous territories overlap with the park, completely in the case of the San José de Uchupiamonas Indigenous Territory and partially in the cases of the Tacana, Lecos Apolo and Lecos Larecaja Indigenous Territories. A second Tacana Indigenous Territory and the Araona Indigenous Territory are found in Madidi’s area of influence.

Both within Madidi and its immediate surroundings there are several pre-Incan and Incan archeological sites at Andean, montane forest and Amazonian locations that are testament to the profound cultural and historical roots of the indigenous people who live in the region. Many of the historical and actual indigenous groups spoke derivations of Tacana: Araonas, Ixiamas, Tacanas, Cavinas, Esse Ejjas and Uchupiamonas, but Madidi is also home to the Lecos people and language. Subsistence hunting for these indigenous groups was a fundamental activity, both from material and spiritual perspectives. Indigenous people also cultivated manioc, beans and corn, and fished and collected honey and a diversity of forest fruits, and traveled the rivers and trails of the region to transport products and exchange at markets.

Nowadays, the Lecos and the Tacana are practicing indigenous territorial management in and immediately adjacent to Madidi National Park, including the development of management visions, or Indigenous Life Plans, which organize and guide actual and future use of the land and define clear objectives and development strategies.